Instinct
by marisa lee
Summary: Your first instinct in a car crash is to protect me? [...] That's pretty cool of you." Possible Butteroomer. One-shot.


**AU, they're all normal, early twenties, et cetera. A/N at the end.**

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**Instinct (Also You Kinda Look Good in Blue)**

Cars. They were basically his life. He'd practically been born in a car. It was as if some higher power had decided he was destined to be a car guy. He spent his entire life saving up for one in particular: his now very own Eileen. She was nothing to sneeze at, either. Sleek, fast and smooth, Eileen was, to put it mildly, his girlfriend. Eileen's official title was a 2013 Chevy Camaro V-6, but of course that was too much of a mouthful for most normal car drivers, and he liked Eileen much better anyways.

And Boomer wasn't a terrible driver, either. He'd passed his road test with flying colours, and he'd never been in an accident even in his nightmares. The one thing he couldn't stand, though, was when other people drove, or even sat in, his car. And even though he was too nice for his own good, giving people rides places wasn't his forte. Though, there _were_ exceptions. Sometimes.

It was pouring rain when Boomer left the gym one Friday afternoon. After taking a cool shower in the locker room, a towel wrapped around his neck, he couldn't wait to relax inside of Eileen's nice, warm interior with the radio blasting the rain away. As he sunk into the drivers' seat with his hand on her soft gear shift, the rain softly pitter-pattering on the windshield, he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. Wait, scratch that, some_one_.

Standing just underneath the awning of the entrance to the gym was a short, soaking wet woman with her short hair barely pulled into a tiny, dripping ponytail at the base of her neck. Her thin arms hugged her torso tightly, as if forcing herself not to shiver. It wasn't working very well, for Boomer could clearly see the dark framed glasses on her face tremble with each shiver. She wasn't wearing much as far as outerwear went, and considering it was only the beginning of spring, he could understand that she was considerably cold. There were only two things keeping him from stopping the car and giving her a ride: one, he knew this girl. He recognized her from the countless times she'd been to his house back when he used to live with his brothers. She was the on-and-off girlfriend of his older brother, Butch. At that exact moment, he wasn't too sure whether they were together or not, but he didn't really care to know.

The second reason he didn't want her in his car was the more obvious: she was wet, _very_ wet, and wet plus Eileen did not equal happy Boomer. He really, really, _really_ did not want to invite her into his car.

But for some reason, he did it anyway. Maybe because he was just that nice. Who knows.

He pulled Eileen up as close as he could get to the awning by the door and rolled down the passenger side window. The look on her face was a surprised one, from what he could see behind her fogged-up glasses.

"Need a lift?" Okay, the dumbest line in the history of lines ever spoken. Why did he have to go with that one? Not that it was important, she was just that one girl Butch used to date (or still is dating?) and he couldn't remember her name at the moment…

"I should've known it was you in that car, Boomer." Her greeting was less than comforting. How nice. "What are you doing here? Picking up your asshole of a brother?"

It was true, Butch was quite the asshole. Though he still wasn't sure if that meant they were dating or not. They used to call each other rude names all the time. But what did it matter, honestly?

"As a matter of fact," said Boomer defensively, "I've been working out since about ten o'clock this morning."

As he said 'working out', her gaze immediately shifted to Boomer's exposed arms, and her eyebrows lifted. She was impressed. But she didn't say anything.

Boomer shifted awkwardly in his seat. "Are you gonna get in or not, the heat is on."

She eyed his ride suspiciously for another moment before shrugging and pulling open the door. Boomer tried not to wince as her wet form came in contact with Eileen's nice interior.

"Wait a second," he said quickly, and she paused mid-hover above the passenger seat. He whipped the towel out from around his neck and used it to cover most of the seat before she sat down. She gave him a strange look, but sat on the towel anyway.

He gripped the wheel tightly, pressing on the gas, and Eileen shot forward. He didn't look at the girl in his passenger seat, though she stared at him shamelessly. He could feel her eyes raking his face, his neck, his arms, and other areas of his body he really wished she would leave alone.

"So, where to?" he asked her, trying to get her to remove her eyes from his lap. He shifted uncomfortably when they didn't move right away.

"I thought you knew where I lived," she said finally, her eyes flickering to his face.

He let out a breath of relief that she pretended not to notice. "Well, I didn't know if you'd moved out yet or anything, you know…"

"Who says I'm trying to move out? My sisters are gone, and somebody's gotta take care of the house when Dad's gone."

Boomer pulled out of the parking lot of the gym, Eileen's windshield wipers whipping around like crazy. He could barely see six feet in front of him, it was raining so hard.

"That's a valid argument, I guess," he muttered as he rounded a corner. It was quite difficult to drive in this rain and watch her eyes at the same time, so he nixed it and decided to let her stare at whatever she wanted to stare at. And stare, she did.

"What about you? You got your own place yet?"

It took him a moment to answer, as he was carefully avoiding traffic at a red light. "Yeah, I've got an apartment in the suburbs. Nothing too fancy, but it's right by the University so it's convenient for me."

He saw her eyebrows shoot up again in his peripherals. "Ah, you're at the University now?" Yet again, she sounded quite impressed. "And you've got a nice car. I approve."

"Er, I'm glad, thank you."

"Though I'm not too sure how good I look in blue."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "The colour of your car doesn't compliment me at all. I'm more of a green girl."

Boomer snuck a look at her out of the corner of his eye, Eileen's navy interior her only background. He happened to think she looked quite nice inside his car, but he wasn't about to say so. Besides, he couldn't get a very good look at her while he was driving in this hurricane.

"Butch never had the motivation to move out or get a job or anything like that," she complained. "It's nice to know you're not all failures."

"Butch isn't a failure, he just has some issues to work out." Boomer didn't particularly approve of this near-stranger insulting his brothers in his car.

She just smirked and shook her head. "Sure, some issues that will never be resolved. That guy's got a lot of problems to take care of before I even think about sleeping with him again."

Boomer's hand slipped on the gear shift out of shock at her comment, but he blinked and shook his head.

"I'm pretty sure he doesn't want anything to do with you at this point," Boomer spoke in defense of his brother, "if you're going to have that sort of attitude about him."

She snorted. "Good riddance to him, anyways. He was a lousy boyfriend and he wasn't that great in bed to begin with."

Boomer's fuse was becoming increasingly shorter as he rounded another corner. "As much as I'd love to hear about my brother's performance in bed, let's keep the details to a minimum, shall we?"

His companion simply rolled her eyes and loosened her hair from the tie that was holding it together. Her short hair fell around her face and she shook it out with her hands, trying to dry it at least a bit.

"I was just making a joke, you don't have to be such an ass about it."

"Well it didn't sound like a joke to me."

She opened her mouth to respond, but the noise that came out of her mouth was less than indecipherable words. For at that moment, Boomer's foot slammed hard down on the brake, and the breath was knocked right out of her lungs. Some idiot had swerved right in front of them while trying to change lanes. Boomer's right arm flew out at the same moment and cut right across her chest, his other hand steady on the wheel, blaring Eileen's horn as hard as he could.

"Jesus, drive much?" he shouted at the car in front of him. Though the driver likely could not hear him, he yelled anyways. He pulled his arm away from her and gripped the wheel tightly. "Almost fucking rear ended that jackass."

He glanced at his companion in the passenger seat. "You okay?"

She rubbed at a red spot on her neck where the seatbelt had dug into her skin, but her eyes didn't leave his right arm. He was getting quite sick of her staring at his body parts, so he opened his mouth to rebuke her, but not before she cut him off.

"Why did you just do that?"

"I-What are you talking about, that was his fault!"

"Not that, I'm talking about choking me to death."

He said nothing, because he still wasn't quite sure what she was talking about.

Her eyes rolled and she scowled. "Your arm literally smacked me right in the chest, what the fuck was that all about?"

His face flushed as he pulled down the old familiar street of hers. "Oh, sorry, that's just an instinct of mine, I really don't know why I do it-"

"Your first instinct in a car crash was to protect me?"

He blinked. "Er, I mean, I guess you could put it that way, I don't exactly-"

"That's really cool of you." Then she did something very rare. She smiled at him. She actually smiled at him. And it was then that he remembered her name.

"Buttercup," he breathed out loud. It had been on the tip of his tongue the entire ride there and he'd finally remembered it. Out loud.

...Whoops.

Her smile fell and she gave him another strange look. He pulled into her driveway and stopped, a bit suddenly, but he was finally able to look at her. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of Eileen's radiator and her hair fell in short, dark waves around her face. She was pretty, very pretty. Now it was his turn to stare.

"What?" she said quickly, yanking him out of the depths of her deep green eyes.

"I-nothing, just… we should work out together sometime."

She snorted and opened the door, grabbing her bag from her feet. "You're asking me to go on a date with another one of you obnoxious, selfless Jojo brothers?" She leaned back into the car so she could see his reaction.

His heart dropped into his stomach and his face felt like it was on fire. "Hey, I mean-"

Again, she cut him off. "I'll consider it." Then, she winked, and before he could blink her form disappeared from his car altogether and she'd slammed the door.

"Don't crash!" he heard her call from her front porch.

With a nod and a small smile, he shifted into reverse and pulled back out of her driveway, thinking to himself that he'd rather see her in blue than green any day.

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_Reviewers will win Boomer plushies :3_

**A/N: Sorry I've been MIA, guys. Senior year's a bit of a hassle. I've been working non-stop on both Strawberry Wine and Before Again, so they should both be updated sometime in the next two weeks or so. I should have a new contest out for you guys by the beginning of October as well, so get those Halloween-ish creative juices flowing! Lastly, I have officially become a certified beta reader! If you would like me to beta anything for you, have a look at my beta profile. I'll talk to you guys soon, and if you've got any questions or even feel like talking please feel free to DM me! I'm always here! :3**

**xoxo -ml**


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